APUSH Important Terms

Treaty of Tordesillas

Agreement between Spain and Portugal that divided the world between them.

Mayflower Compact

First governing document of Plymouth Colony.

Headright System

A grant of land given to settlers in the 13 colonies.

Martin Luther

German professor of theology, composer, priest, monk, and seminal figure in the Protestant Reformation.

Pilgrims (Separatists)

English Protestants who would not accept allegiance in any form other than what they themselves decided upon

Jamestown

First permanent English settlement in North America

Triangular Trade

A system in which slaves, crops, and manufactured goods were traded between Africa, the Caribbean, and the American colonies.

Salem Witch Trials

A series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts.

Roger Williams

An English theologian and religious liberty advocate.

Anne Hutchinson

A Puritan spiritual advisor, religious reformer, and an important participant in the Antinomian Controversy

Bacon’s Rebellions

An armed rebellion in 1676 by Virginia settlers led by Nathaniel Bacon against the rule of Governor William Berkeley.

House of Burgesses

The first democratically-elected legislative body in British North America.

Mercantilism

An economic policy under which nations sought to increase their wealth and power by obtaining large amounts of gold and silver and by selling more goods than they bought

Navigation Acts

A series of laws restricting colonial trade

Salutary Neglect

An English policy of relaxing the enforcement of regulations in its colonies in return for the colonies' continued economic loyalty

Writs of Assistance

General search warrants that allowed British customs officials to search any colonial property.

Sugar Act

A law passed by the British Parliament in 1764 raising duties on foreign sugar imported by the colonies.

Virtual Representation

the idea that the members of Parliament, including the Lords and the Crown-in-Parliament, reserved the right to speak for the interests of all British subjects, rather than for the interests of only the district that elected them

Stamp Act

An act of the British Parliament in 1765 that exacted revenue from the American colonies by imposing a stamp duty on newspapers and legal and commercial documents.

Declaratory Act

A law passed by Parliament in 1766 stating that the British government had total power to legislate for the colonies

Proclamation of 1763

Forbade British colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains, and which required any settlers already living west of the mountains to move back east.

Common Sense

A pamphlet written by Thomas Paine that inspired people in the Thirteen Colonies to declare and fight for independence from Great Britain

Revolutionary War

The war fought between Great Britain and its Thirteen Colonies which declared independence as the United States of America

Shays’ Rebellion

An armed uprising in Massachusetts during 1786 and 1787. Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays led four thousand rebels in rising up against perceived economic and civil rights injustices.

Beard Thesis

An interpretation of the Constitution as being designed to prevent the rise of factions of power.

Yorktown

A decisive victory in the American Revolutionary War, resulting in the surrender of British forces.

Whiskey Rebellion

A tax protest in the United States beginning in 1791 and ending in 1794 during the presidency of George Washington, ultimately under the command of American Revolutionary War veteran Major James McFarlane.

Articles of Confederation

The first constitution of the United States of America

Bill of Rights

Collection of the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution.

Connecticut Compromise

An agreement that both large and small states reached during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that in part defined the legislative structure and representation that each state would have under the United States Constitution.

Election of 1796

The first real contested American presidential election.

Election of 1800

Sometimes referred to as the "Revolution of 1800," Vice President Thomas Jefferson defeated incumbent President John Adams.

Marbury v. Madison

A landmark case by the United States Supreme Court which forms the basis for the exercise of judicial review in the United States under Article III of the Constitution.

John Marshall

American jurist and statesman who shaped American constitutional law and made the Supreme Court a center of power.

Louisiana Purchase

The acquisition of the territory of Louisiana by the United States from the French First Republic in 1803.

War of 1812

A conflict fought between the United States and Great Britain over British violations of U.S. maritime rights.

Treaty of Ghent

The peace treaty that ended the War of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain.

Aaron Burr

American politician, lawyer, and soldier, who served as the 3rd Vice President of the United States.

Alexander Hamilton

American statesman, politician, legal scholar, military commander, lawyer, banker, and economist. He was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.

Impressment

The act of compelling men into a navy or army.

Monroe Doctrine

A United States policy of opposing European colonialism in the Americas beginning in 1823.

Embargo Act of 1807

A law passed by the United States Congress in 1807 prohibiting American ships from trading in foreign ports.

Tariff

Taxes on imports or exports

John C. Calhoun

An American statesman and political theorist from South Carolina during the first half of the 19th century.

Jacksonian Democracy

The political and social beliefs and practices that dominated American politics in the 1820s and 1830s.

“Corrupt Bargain”

The American presidential election of 1824, in which Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams allegedly colluded to deny Andrew Jackson the presidency.

“Era of Good Feelings”

A period in the political history of the United States during President James Monroe's administration, reflecting a sense of national purpose and a desire for unity among Americans in the aftermath of the War of 1812.

McCulloch v. Maryland

A landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States. The state of Maryland had attempted to tax the national bank located in Maryland.

Gibbons v. Ogden

A landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States holding that the power to regulate interstate commerce, granted to Congress by the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, encompassed the power to regulate navigation.

Eli Whitney

An American inventor best known for inventing the cotton gin.

Bank War

A political struggle that ensued over the fate of the Second Bank of the United States during the presidency of Andrew Jackson.

Eaton Affair

A U.S. scandal involving members of President Andrew Jackson's Cabinet and their wives.

Nullification

A United States constitutional theory that would allow states to invalidate federal laws.

Missouri Compromise

An effort by Congress to defuse the sectional and political rivalries triggered by the request of Missouri late in 1819 for admission as a state in which slavery would be permitted.

Joseph Smith

The founder of the Latter Day Saint movement.

Romanticism

An artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement.

Common School Movement

A movement to make education available to all children in the United States.

Rise of Sectionalism

The increasing division between the North and South in the United States leading up to the Civil War.

Manifest Destiny

The 19th-century doctrine or belief that the expansion of the US throughout the American continents was both justified and inevitable.

Mexican-American War

A war between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

The peace treaty signed on February 2, 1848, in the Villa de Guadalupe Hidalgo between the U.S. and Mexico that ended the Mexican–American War.

Popular Sovereignty

The principle that the authority of a state and its government are created and sustained by the consent of its people, through their elected representatives, who are the source of all political power.

Compromise of 1850

A package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850, which defused a four-year political confrontation between slave and free states regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican–American War.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

An anti-slavery novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Stephen Douglass

An American politician from Illinois and the designer of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

Dred Scott Decision

A landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court held that the U.S. Constitution was not meant to include American citizenship for people of African descent, regardless of whether they were enslaved or free, and therefore the rights and privileges that the Constitution confers upon American citizens could not apply to them.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

An act of Congress in 1854 that created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska and was drafted by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois.

Lincoln-Douglass Debates

A series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln and the incumbent United States Senator Stephen Douglas, both vying for election to the United States Senate seat for Illinois.

Freeport Doctrine

Articulated by Stephen Douglas during the Lincoln-Douglas debates, that a territory could exclude slavery by refusing to pass laws protecting slaveholders' rights.

Secession

The withdrawal of eleven Southern states from the Union in 1860 and 1861, triggering the Civil War.

Bull Run

The first major battle of the American Civil War.

Fort Sumter

The bombardment of this place near Charleston, South Carolina, in April 1861 is considered the start of the American Civil War.

Antietam

A battle fought during the American Civil War on September 17, 1862, near Sharpsburg, Maryland. It was the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with over 22,000 casualties.

Shiloh

A major battle in the Western Theater of the American Civil War, fought April 6–7, 1862, in southwestern Tennessee.

Gettysburg

The most decisive battle of the American Civil War, fought in Pennsylvania in 1863.

Appomattox Court House

The site of the surrender of the Confederate Army under Robert E. Lee to Union commander Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865, effectively ending the American Civil War.

Emancipation Declaration

A presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War

Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address

This address was given by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.

Robert E. Lee

American and Confederate soldier, best known as a commander of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.

Reconstruction Era

A period of rebuilding the United States after the Civil War

Presidential Reconstruction

President Abraham Lincoln's plan (to readmit the Confederate states) for Reconstruction

Congressional Reconstruction

A process led by Congress by Radical Republicans that was used to readmit the seceded states back into the Union

Wade-Davis Bill

A bill passed by Congress in 1864 and vetoed by President Lincoln, outlining stricter requirements for Confederate states' readmission to the Union

Andrew Johnson

The 17th President of the United States, who took office after Abraham Lincoln's assassination

Black Codes

Laws passed by Southern states after the Civil War, restricting African Americans' freedom and compelling them to work in a labor economy based on low wages or debt.

Freedman’s Bureau

An agency created by Congress in 1865 to help former slaves and poor whites in the South after the Civil War.

13th, 14th, 15th Amendment

Amendments to the Constitution that abolished slavery (13th), guaranteed equal protection under the law (14th), and prohibited the denial of voting rights based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude (15th).

Sharecropping

A system where landowners allow a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on their portion of land. This system was used after the Civil War.

Carpetbaggers

A derogatory term applied to Northerners who migrated to the South during the Reconstruction era, often seeking economic or political gain.

Scalawags

A derogatory term for white Southerners who supported Reconstruction after the Civil War.

Compromise of 1877

Settled the intensely disputed 1876 presidential election. It resulted in the United States federal government pulling the last troops out of the South, and formally ended the Reconstruction Era.

Force Acts

Series of four acts passed by the U.S. Congress from 1870 to 1871 to protect African Americans' right to vote, hold office, serve on juries, and receive equal protection of laws.

Tenure of Office Act

A United States federal law (in force from 1867 to 1887) intended to restrict the power of the President of the United States to remove certain office-holders without the approval of the Senate.

Ku Klux Klan

A white supremacist terrorist group that emerged after the Civil War, aiming to suppress Black Americans and their allies.

Gilded Age

An era of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern and Western United States, and known for political corruption & corporate greed.

Charles Darwin

English naturalist and biologist, known for his theory of evolution by natural selection.

“Bloody Shirt”

The practice of reviving gory memories of the Civil War during political campaigns. It was used by congressional Republicans and the Union Army veterans in the 1860s–1890s to mock Democrats.

Social Darwinism

The theory that individuals, groups, and peoples are subject to the same Darwinian laws of natural selection as plants and animals.

Plessy v. Ferguson

A landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation laws for public facilities as long as the segregated facilities were equal in quality – a doctrine that came to be known as "separate but equal"

Booker T. Washington

An African-American educator, author, orator, and advisor to multiple presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American community.